Auto Bravado's ideas on the the Trucks or Cars Miles per Gallon: We all want better numbers, but do we really know how to get them? Let us learn that to get results is to have fun! There are tricks that it took many mechanics decades of experience to figure out and perfect.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

NGK Spark Plug Advantage

The NGK Spark Plug Advantage,
as compared to Bosch, another leading competitor.
Both have their advantages, be educated as to which is best.

The moment I got my hands on these NGK spark plugs I knew there was something different. Not having looked at Champion’s recently, the stud that has electricity to prong that goes through the core of the spark plug is large, which allowing for imperfections or impurities in the design of the iridium or platinum plug makes for a less reliably perfect arc of electricity of the appropriately distanced gap. You see, if the stud is wide, and if electricity will always follow the path of least resistance you can’t prove that the arc will actually be the .044 gap that most car’s and truck’s engines require. Note: it is necessary to look up the gap specifications for each vehicle. The shortest electrical path therefore, is not guaranteed as it could go to one part of the stud or another.

Additionally, lightning, or a controlled spark in your NGK plug, is the means for delivering that all important catalyst, which allows for combustion. So, part of the NGK spark plug advantage is that it has a small stud. Having had lightning as part of AutoBravado’s study and education. Lightning appears to want, for a lack of a better verb, to want to strike objects that are either pointy, or gradually rounded to a ball. Sorry, folks, that means our heads our shaped just right to get hit by lightning, but don’t you fear, electricity likes the shortest path with the least resistance and we are hardly like metal being low resistance and we being of high electrical resistance.

The NGK Spark Plug, if looked at with careful attention is ideally shaped. Auto Bravado has observed this in his studies with the Hansen planetarium. From the beginning, my promise has been that the collected experience here will tell you what is best and keep the physics out of it, but knowing a bit can really help you make the right choice wether it’s best to buy NGK Spark Plug’s or one’s made by Bosch.

The NGK Spark Plug and the Bosch each have their own advantages. For example, the Bosch is a bit more rounded with its point being protected made of some durable material, while the NGK spark plug is more pointed. The NGK spark plug has more resistance, a believed component for best operation of Japanese made engines by many in the industry. The NGK spark plug advantage over the Bosch is durability. As time goes on the prongs will slowly wear away. In Bosch’s protective sheath the platinum end goes deeper and deeper as it wears allowing for no reliable way to maintain the original gap. As discussed on the spark plug gap page, occasionally going through your engine and having everything re-gapped, makes replacing your NGK spark plugs have the advantage over Bosch’s design. You see, lacking a protective sheath, which gave Bosch the rounded shape and also takes away from your ability re-gap the Bosch as the electrode wears down. A gapping tool can’t measure below the surface of the protective sheath. This is the chief durability advantage of the NGK spark plug. No protective sheath means that as it wears down you can just re-gap it.

My friend, you can find your quality, German Bosch Platinums here for less (and NGK too! I tend to buy those more often for my own cars), even with shipping, then I can buy it from the local store! Happened to me in Jan. of '09: I've just finished being glad that I bought 10 for a 6 cylinder. Confused? I'll explain. I lost 1 under the hood somewhere and I measured the ohms of resistance on all of them to find 3 pairs of equal ohms resistance plugs, which I set on opposite sides of the V engine so that the lowest resistance plugs matched with the longest wire, which makes more resistance. And vice versa, the highest resistance met up with the lowest resistance, or shorter wires. I found this new new technique to have quicker results than tinkering with the spark plug gap in every plug off of the manufacturer specifications, but sometimes on tougher jobs you'll still need what your learned here on the controversial side of gapping to obtain the smoothest engine you did ever hear or feel. I know many mechanics that tell me I do too much when I do a tune up, but maybe they just need to realize that's why I'll make an identical car beat theirs off the line!<br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.afcyhf.com/91108p59y31NQTXPWOWNPOTURUWR" height="1" width="1" />

3 comments:

The longer the spark plug wire the higher the resistance to electrical flow. So,to balance this out for a smooth running engine put the spark plugs with higher resistance or the larger measured ohms with the shorter spark plug wires. That's what I relearned from this article. Thanks AutoBravado. I even go back to these articles and relearn from myself! ;)